Everyday life, found in the record
A memory becomes history when we ask what made it ordinary.
A source-first guide to exploring objects, photographs and first-person accounts across decades without mistaking one memory for everyone’s past.
Photo: Daniel Romero
Start with the evidence
Start with a surviving trace, then follow its context. Memory is evidence about a person’s experience; it is not a poll of everyone who lived then.
This short edition draws on the sources listed in Source notes. Each page says what its evidence supports and where interpretation begins.